Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declined to meet US leader Barack Obama during a visit to New York, says an Israeli newspaper. The White House said the meeting was not possible due to the two officials’ conflicting schedules.

Rivlin arrived in the US
last week to speak at the UN headquarters, where International
Holocaust Remembrance Day is being held this week. According to
Haaretz, the president declined an invitation from the White
House to meet Barack Obama.

Rivlin’s office has been seeking to organize his meeting with
Obama during the January visit since December, Alistair Baskey,
the deputy spokesman for the White House National Security
Council said. According to a senior Israeli official cited by the
Israeli newspaper, Rivlin didn’t want to impose himself on Obama
at first and was prepared to travel to Washington to meet him.

Weeks of negotiations between the two offices ahead of Rivlin’s
visit failed to materialize in a meeting, and on Saturday the
Israeli president reviewed the latest suggestions from Washington
and finally declined to pursue it.

“Due to scheduling conflicts, a meeting during this visit
will not be possible,” Baskey commented on the non-event.

“At this stage, it has been agreed not to hold a meeting
during his visit, due to the schedule constraints of both
leaders, and that a meeting would be scheduled at a later
date,” a spokesman for Rivlin’s office confirmed in a
coordinated statement.

The relations between Israel and the US are tense due to
conflicting views on Middle-East policies advocated by Obama and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A series of cabinets
under Netanyahu has been pursuing a rigid rightist agenda, which
includes construction of new settlements in Israeli occupied
territories and other steps alienating Palestinians. Obama’s
second-term administration tried to make Middle-East peace
mediation a key point of its foreign policy.

The latest instance of this confrontation came last week, when it
was revealed that Netanyahu was planning to deliver an
unscheduled speech before the US Congress. Democrats see the move
by Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who invited the Israeli
leader, as a partisan step violating the protocol and
inappropriate for an international policy issue. Haaretz suggests
Rivlin’s decision was at least partially motivated by his desire
not to be perceived as taking part in the conflict.